Playing Catch Up
by Fluffy-CSI
Summary: Chapter 5 up. It wasn't Bobby's brother, after all. But tell that to Goren's adrenaline levels as they leave the morgue. Can Eames get him to finally open up about everything he's been hiding from her?
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Wow, look at me, I exist again! It's been a very long time, if you hadn't noticed, but I might be back. After serendipitiously catching the end of the USA marathon this weekend, I have a sudden urge to get back into the CI world. Now, keep in mind that the last episode I saw before this weekend was the episode where Deakins left. So you could say I'm, er, just a bit behind the times. A tad. Only, oh, a year or so. So please, if what I'm writing is contradicted by stuff I missed, pleeease let me know what it is and what the right answer is so I can correct it.

Anyway, this is a post ep for...um...the episode where Bobby's brother didn't actually die, even though it was his coat on the slab. Not that I know the title of it, being as oblivious as I am anymore, but yeah...that one. I'm not sure where exactly I'm going to take this. Probably a B/A comfort fic, but as those of you who've read my stuff before know, my plots have a way of taking over themselves and going haywire. So maybe it'll end up something completely different. Either way, reviews are going to be my impetus, or lack thereof, for following this up. I don't know if I've still got the knack, you know?

Sorry, enough A/N-ing. On with the teaser!

* * *

"Bobby." Alex Eames quick-stepped to catch up to her partner, who was fleeing the morgue in as dignified a manner as one could manage if the hounds of hell were after one. "Bobby, wait up!"

He glanced over his shoulder and mumbled something she didn't catch, but if anything he sped up his stride.

Realizing that she was never going to catch him this way, she went for Plan B. Stopping short in her tracks, she moved a few inches to the edge of the hallway to avoid blocking foot traffic, leaned against the wall, and waited for him to notice that she was no longer giving chase.

It took him about ten long strides before it hit him that something was different. Momentarily lifted from his absorption by the awareness of change, he paused mid-step and looked around to figure out what it was that had caught his attention.

There wasn't anyone dogging his heels anymore, that was it. He looked around again, confused by how she'd managed to disappear so suddenly. "Eames?"

"Back here, Bobby."

He blinked and looked at where the voice was coming from. There was his partner, leisurely leaning up against a puce-colored morgue wall. "Why'd you stop?"

She gave him an enigmatic shrug, pushed off the wall, and unhurriedly made her way to where he was standing. "Why'd you keep going?"

"I wasn't paying -"

"Exactly."

"Oh." He glanced down at her, then quickly looked away before she could actually meet his eyes. "Sorry. I'm just, uh . . ."

"Preoccupied?"

"Yeah."

"Hm." She looked thoughtful. "You want to talk about it?"

"No."

"Too bad." Before he could protest, she'd wrapped a hand around his bicep and was pulling him along. "Come on."

"Eames . . ."

"Yeah?"

"I don't think -"

"Walk, Bobby. No time for thinking; we've got places to be."

That confounded him, and he allowed her to pull him along for a good fifty feet while he tried to figure out where it was they were supposed to be and how he had forgotten. Coming up blank, he returned to reality just as she was about to pull him into the elevator. "What . . . where are we going?"

"Out of here," she answered shortly, towing him into the elevator car. "Work day's over."

He processed that for a second. "It is? I should go -"

"Ohhh, no. You're mine for the night, Goren. We've got stuff to discuss."

Oh, no. When she said that, it never meant anything good. Tonight, especially, he would be bad company. Even now, just facing the prospect of a long, partner-ly discussion, he had to fight the urge to shake off her hand and run. "I don't think that's a good idea, Eames. Really, I just need to -"

She tightened her hand as if suspecting he was going to flee. "You really just need to be quiet and follow me, ok? Trust me," she added, her voice softening. "I'm looking out for you, here. Partners, remember?"

"Of course I remember. I'm just saying that I don't think tonight I'm going to be any use to, uh, well, anyone. Including you."

"You don't have to be of use." Confident now that he wasn't going to just dig in his heels and refuse to move any further, she led him out of the elevator and toward the front door of the building. "I don't plan on 'using' you at all tonight. In fact, I might let you use me."

That got his attention. He stopped again and blinked owlishly at her. "You . . . what?"

She rolled her eyes. "Not like that, Casanova. Would you just walk, please? And trust me for just one night?" When he moved to protest again, she cut him off before he could: "I know the concept of trusting me is something you try to avoid anymore, but just . . . just give it a rest, would you?" she ended up saying snappishly, in spite of herself. "You won't let me in, and I'm worried about you, and Ross is worried about you, and all I want is a little conversation to make sure you're not going to go apeshit and destroy the entire eleventh floor on your next bad day, ok? Your desk was enough."

He gaped at her in response to that vehement speech. "I'm fine."

"Maybe you are. Me, not so much. So just cooperate, here, ok?"

He wasn't going to get out of it. And when she put it like that, the least he owed her was a little cooperation after the last few weeks. He sighed and stopped resisting the pull of her small hand. "Ok."

Eames offered him her first smile since Bobby had been summoned to the morgue. It was weak, but it was definitely an up-turning of her lips. "Thank you. Now, walk."


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Yay more writing in one day! Much longer chapter this time.

* * *

She took him to her apartment, a place he hadn't been since well before Thanksgiving, when things had begun to go really bad. He looked around at the four walls he had once been so familiar with, realizing that although she hadn't changed much within them, he no longer felt like it was his world.

His world wasn't nearly so homey. His world involved tubes and radiologists and irate mothers, not framed photographs, nephews, and concerned partners. His world was stress, not companionship.

"Bobby?"

He jumped at the sound of her voice. "What?"

"Are you going to actually come in, or are you going to stand in the doorway staring all night?"

He tried again to get out of participating in what he knew would be a bad night: "Well, actually, I was going to . . . that is, maybe I should leave." Without giving her time to respond, he turned and reached for the doorknob.

"Oh, no you don't." She moved quickly, he had to give her that. Before his hand reached the knob, she'd placed her body between him and it and wrapped her own hands around the metal to keep him from gripping it. "I'll padlock this door shut if I have to, Bobby, but you're not leaving until you talk to me."

"I don't want to talk."

"Since when do I care if you actually _want_ to talk or not?" she shot back. "You're smart enough to know that whether you _want_ to or not, once I have you in my clutches, you're _going_ to."

"This isn't a good idea, Eames. Really, I -"

She sighed. "Can I step away from this door and start cooking some dinner, or are you going to bolt?"

Bobby gave bolting some serious consideration, but in the end he just shrugged and took a step back. "I won't run."

"Damn straight," she replied smartly. "Because if you do, and I don't manage to catch you, you're _really _going to be in for it when I do get my hands on you. And you don't want that, do you, Goren?"

"Umm . . ."

"That's what I thought. Now, do you have any preferences for what we have for dinner?"

He shook his head. "Something easy. I mean, you don't have to cook for me. You shouldn't have to cook for me. I can take care of myself, anyway, and -"

Alex rolled her eyes. "Yeah, sure you can," she said, elbowing him in his increasing potbelly. "That's why you've been living on god-knows-what - McDonalds or Taco Bell or whatever you can grab at the hospital - you hardly sleep anymore, and you haven't said yes to a trip to the gym in months."

Irrationally wounded by her pointing out his weight gain, he pulled away and scowled. "I've been a little busy lately," he said defensively.

"I know you have," she allowed more gently, "but you can't make your mother better by making yourself unhealthy. It doesn't work like that."

"You think I don't know that?" Angry now, he erased the inches he had just put between them by advancing on her, jabbing a pointed finger into her solar plexus. "You have _no idea _how much research I've done. I know exactly what can, can't, and might help my mother, and none of it's any of your business anyway, and -"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa." It was her turn to back up now and hold up her hands in surrender. "I wasn't trying to say I knew more about any of this than you. You know I know you well enough to imagine _exactly_ how much research you've done." She sighed, making no move to push his hand away, despite how uncomfortable it was getting. Among all the other things he had let go on himself, Bobby needed to cut his fingernails. "I'm sorry, ok? I just worry about you. _Someone _has to," she couldn't help adding defiantly, "considering that you don't bother to worry about yourself."

"I've been -"

"_Busy_, I know. We're going in circles, here." She sighed and shook her head. "Since you apparently have no suggestions, I'm going to make pasta. I know you like that. Fair enough?"

"Hmph."

"I'll take that as a yes, thank you very much. Can you handle helping out some, or do you want to keep on sulking?"

The idea of having something to do besides stand around and get berated was highly attractive at this point. He eagerly agreed to retrieve the tomato sauce from the freezer and start it defrosting while she rustled up a pasta pot and some spaghetti.

* * *

"There," Alex commented thirty minutes later as she dumped the pot of pasta into the colander in her sink. "See, we can co-exist for a whole half-hour without fighting!"

Bobby, feeling guilty now for his earlier outburst, sighed and gave the pot of almost-boiling tomato sauce he was supervising a stir. "I'm sorry, Eames. I'm just stressed."

"I know." She leaned past him to dip the tip of her pinky finger into the pot of sauce, intending to taste it. "Ow! Hot!" she yelped instead once it hit her skin, jumping back and shaking the hot sauce off her finger. "Why didn't you warn me, you big lug?"

He smiled in spite of himself at the sight of her dancing around shaking her hand, spattering red sauce all over her nice clean stovetop. "You move too fast, Eames. Besides, my hands are occupied," he added, showing her the sauce-covered wooden spoon that he was holding. "I'd just have ended up whacking you with this, and then you'd have tomato sauce in your hair instead of just on your hand, and then you'd be _really _pissed at me, and . . ." He stopped there as she doubled over, laughing too hard at his rationalization to listen to any more.

"B-Bobby," she gasped after a few seconds of howling, "you can wipe tomato sauce in my hair _any _day if I get a laugh like that out of it!"

"I didn't say anything about 'wiping'," he pointed out, unable to resist a smile. "It would have been more of a slap, and -"

Alex roared with renewed laughter at the mental image of being slapped in the side of the head with a wet, tomato-y spoon. Then she pictured getting him back with a spoon in her own hand, and laughed even harder.

"You ok, there, Eames?" Bobby asked, giving the sauce a final stir and then turning off the burner. "Better watch out you don't trip on the -"

As if on cue, Alex tripped over the empty spaghetti box she had tossed on the floor next to the garbage can and went crashing to the ground, still laughing the whole way.

Bobby, reacting instinctively, dropped the spoon on the stove and dove for her, trying to break her fall before she hit her head on something dangerous. They ended up in a tangle on the floor, one of Bobby's hands under her head and one of Alex's legs between his. "You ok?" he asked concernedly, peering into her eyes.

"Just . . . hahaha . . . fine, thanks," Alex panted between giggles. "Are you? That was a nice catch you made," she added, wiggling her head where it rested in his palm. "You should play baseball."

"I'm fine." He pulled his hand away and started to extricate himself. "Sorry about the -"

"Hey, no fair," she interrupted, grabbing his hand and forcing him back to the floor. "Get back down here."

"Huh?"

She shrugged and smiled at him. "If we can't talk standing up, maybe we can talk on the floor." She pulled her leg out from between his and righted herself enough to sit cross-legged, leaning up against the oven door. "Feel a little more loosened up now that you got to throw a spoon and trip your partner?"

"_I_ didn't trip you," he felt obliged to point out, even as he as he mirrored her movements and leaned against a table leg. "It was the spaghetti box."

"How ignominious," she commented thoughtfully. "To be laid low by a hunk of inanimate cardboard. Mind if I tell people it was you instead?"

He raised his eyebrows. "You going to be discussing this incident with other people?"

"Well no, come to think of it. But still."

"If it makes you feel better, Eames," he said grandly, pointing to the now-flattened cardboard box, "you can even tell yourself that the other guy looks worse."

She laughed again, then stopped abruptly. "Bobby?"

"What?" he asked, alarmed by the suddenness with with she'd cut off her giggles.

"When was the last time you laughed?"

"I . . ." He paused. "I don't know. There hasn't been much funny in my life lately."

"We could laugh about what happened this afternoon," she suggested tentatively. "I mean, how absurd to think that your brother would end up dead, and not just know right off that of course he sold the coat, right?" She giggled gamely, but Bobby fell silent. "I guess not," she sighed. "Want to talk about it, anyway?"

"Not particularly."

"Please?"

He looked up at her in surprise. "Why 'please'? What does it matter to you?"

Alex shook her head. "The fear was coming off you in waves, Bobby. _Waves_. I was scared shitless just standing next to you, wondering what we'd do if it was him."

"There is no 'we' that had to deal with it," he countered with unintended harshness. "If it had been him, I would have dealt with it, and -"

"That's not what I mean," she interrupted. "And yes, there is a 'we.' We're partners, hotshot, as much as you've been pretending like we're not lately. And as your partner, I think I'm allowed to be concerned for you when you're standing there, terrified that one of your last living relatives is dead on a table in front of you."

Bobby shook his head, refusing her concern. "It wasn't him."

"You thought it was. We both thought it was. You were scared, Bobby, and that's totally understandable."

He just frowned and uncoiled his legs, standing up. "We should eat before things get cold."

"Bobby . . ."

"Not now, Eames. Can we please just . . . eat?"

She sighed and stood up next to him. "Fine. Is the sauce hot?"

"Yes."

Back to monosyllables now, apparently. She sighed again and fetched the strainer, dropping it on the table without even trying for finesse. Damn it, she was officially frustrated. Here she was trying to help her partner, and every time she thought she was getting close, he'd just clam up again. "You need to talk to your mom tonight?" she ventured cautiously as they settled themselves at the table, in chairs this time.

"Not if I can avoid it," he replied without thinking, then slammed his mouth shut so quickly that she could hear his teeth click together.

"That bad, huh?" she asked. "You might as well tell me the truth, Bobby. You know I'm not going to judge you."

Sighing, he put down his fork and dragged a hand through his hair. "She's driving me crazy. I know I should be used to it, and I am, but I'm used to it at Carmel Ridge, not at the hospital. It's different."

"Of course it is."

"I feel like all I do anymore is put out fires that my mother starts."

Alex nodded again and kept eating, hoping he wouldn't notice that he was talking until it was too late.

"I'm starting to wish . . ." He stopped, shaking his head. "I can't believe I'm even thinking it."

"Thinking what, Bobby?"

"I . . . no. No, never mind, it's nothing. _Nothing_!" he shouted without warning.

Startled by the sudden yell, she dropped her fork to her plate with a clatter that made both of them start. "Sorry I asked," she muttered, picking it up again and determinedly shoveling in a mouthful of spaghetti. "Far be it from me."

Goren closed his eyes and tipped his head back to the ceiling. "I'm sorry, Eames. I just . . . I don't want to talk about this."

Alex said nothing, thinking better of even lifting her eyes from her plate. She'd thought that a little judicious hinting would bring things tumbling out of him, as it usually did, but this time Goren was obviously going to be a tougher nut to crack than usual. She retreated into her own mind to plot some strategy.


	3. Chapter 3

"I should get going -" Bobby began an hour later, loading the last of the dinner dishes into his partner's dishwasher.

"No, you don't. Sit your ass down."

"It's late, Eames. We both need to -"

"_No_, Bobby. I told you earlier, you're not leaving until we talk." She sighed. "Look, just . . . sit down on the couch and I'll get us some drinks, ok?"

"I-"

"Do it," she said flatly.

He knew her well enough to know that arguing further would be futile. With a sigh of resignation, he obeyed her and lowered himself onto her overstuffed couch, listening to the clinking of the glasses she was preparing.

"You get Jack and Coke," she informed him five minutes later, placing the glass into his hands. "And I get red wine."

"How . . . gender-appropriate."

Alex raised her eyebrows in mock-offense. "You wanna switch? Fine, we'll switch." And without asking permission, she nimbly exchanged their drinks, downing half of the mixed drink in one gulp. "Drink, Bobby."

"Yes . . . ma'am."

"Ooh!" she squeaked in exaggerated irritation. They both knew how much she hated being called that, and they both knew he did it just to annoy her. "Drink, before I take my frustration out on you."

He took an unguarded sip of the acidic wine, choked, then barked through the coughing, "What do _you _have to be frustrated about, anyway?"

She cocked her head to the side and regarded him incredulously. "You're kidding me. Gee, I don't know. How about a partner who's becoming increasingly difficult? A new captain who I have to run continual interference for between him and the difficult partner? The freaking stress of living a detective's life, including getting fucking _kidnapped_?" She snorted. "My life isn't all hearts and flowers, Bobby. In fact," she added more quietly, "it's pretty much _no _hearts and flowers at all."

Chastened, he took another, more cautious sip of his drink. "I'm sorry. I know you don't necessarily have it easy."

"It'd be easier if you'd talk to me, you know. I don't like being shut out. I don't like being treated like you trust me about as much as you trust Ross."

"I trust you!" he immediately protested, horrified at the idea of her thinking he held her in as little respect as their boss, who made a show of being skeptical of Goren and had in return garnered virtually no trust from the detective.

"Hah. Coulda fooled me. You won't tell me anything. I ask you about your brother, you clam up. I ask you about your mother, you scream at me. I gotta tell you, Bobby, it doesn't look too good for your communication skills."

Well, that much was true. Unable to think of a valid rebuttal to her point, he took a long drink of wine instead.

Alex copied him, albeit with less temperance, downing the rest of her drink and sighing. "What are we going to do here, partner? It's really getting hard to work with you when I have to worry about you storming out . . . or running out . . . or disappearing without warning. And then the next day I ask you what the hell happened, and you won't talk to me, and -"

"I'm sorry," he interrupted quietly. "It was a . . . a bad day."

"Today? Or the day - _days _- you stormed out?"

"Both. All."

She was going to try this one more time, and if he still refused to talk, she was going to seriously consider braining him with her heavy glass: "Would you tell me about it? Please?"

"I . . ." He paused, shook his head, and took another sip of wine, giving every sign of having decided against speaking. Just as she was getting ready to launch the glass at his head in retaliation, though, he opened his mouth again. "I guess I need to. But . . . can I have another drink first?"

He was trembling, she realized suddenly as she stood and reached to take the wine glass from his hand. More concerned than ever now, she reached blindly behind her to put the glass down and dropped to her knees on the couch next to him, catching his hand in hers and looking at it worriedly. "Bobby? Are you ok?"

"Huh? I -" He looked down at the hand she was holding, only now seeming to realize it was shaking. "I'm ok, Eames. Just . . . not happy thoughts, you know?"

"I know."

"So . . . uh, if you really want to hear it all . . . I'm going to need that drink."

"Oh!" Reminded of what she had been doing, she dropped his hand and picked up their glasses. "Sorry. I got distracted."

He smiled tightly. "I have that effect on people."

"Not usually on me," she pointed out, returning his smile more freely. "I'm immune."

"Apparently," he mused, "not tonight."

"Oh, bite me." She stuck her tongue out at him, pleased to see that his hands looked steadier. "Sit tight while I prepare to get you rip-roaring drunk, Goren."

Instead of laughing, he just looked thoughtful, the nodded jerkily. "That might not be a bad idea."

"Bobby!"

"Go . . . go on," he interrupted her, nodding her toward the kitchen. "Get us our drinks, and then we can discuss how wasted we'll need to get me."

* * *

A/N: I seem to have a thing for getting everybody drunk as an excuse to open up. Rage & Jack Daniels, anyone? 


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: Wow, did someone ring for some angst? Angst-ridden room service calling...

* * *

"You were right," he finally admitted five drinks later.

Alex peered at him over the rim of her glass, finished the sip she had been taking, and raised an eyebrow. "That's always nice to hear, but what was I right about?"

"About . . ." He took another sip of his drink. "About it being Frank. Not being Frank."

She blinked and put down her fourth Jack and Coke. "You want to run that by me again? Either the alcohol's gone to my brain or you just aren't making sense."

Concentrating harder this time, he tried again. "What I meant was . . . you were right when you said I was s-scared. About it being him. I . . . I haven't spoken to him in years before this week, but I . . ." Heaving a sigh, he dropped his into head in his hands. "If that had been him, I . . ."

"I know, Bobby." She laid a comforting hand on his shoulder, gently kneading the tense muscle under his shirt. "I can only imagine."

"It was . . . it was bad."

She could feel it all the way up her arm as his trembling started again. "It wasn't him, Bobby," she reminded him firmly, tightening her hand. "It wasn't him. He - Frank - he's still out there. Probably a hundred bucks richer, to boot," she added, trying for comic relief.

"No," he replied absently without looking up. "Going price on the street for a coat like that . . . depending on whether the guy who bought it was homeless or if he was just looking for a cheap deal . . . wait, do we know which the dead guy was?"

She shook her head. "No."

"Going price," he went on, not acknowledging her answer, "would be either fifty bucks, for a homeless buddy, or a couple hundred, for a tourist."

Her hand stilled on his shoulder. "The fell-off-a-truck price would be a _couple hundred dollars_, Bobby? How much did you pay for that thing new?"

Confused by her incredulous tone, he craned his neck around to look at where she was leaning over his shoulder. "Um . . . six hundred? I . . . no, keep doing that," he interrupted himself.

"Keep doing what?"

"Your hand . . . what you were doing."

"Oh." She started kneading his shoulder again. "Sorry."

"Don't be . . . sorry. Feels good."

"I live to make you feel good," she replied teasingly, but she was only partially joking. On a night like this, there weren't really that many things higher on her priority list than keeping her partner grounded, and if giving him a one-handed neck-rub helped with that, well, then, she could keep it up all night. "Are you going to try to find your brother again?"

A final shiver ran through him, and then she could feel him deliberately tense his shoulders to drive it away. "No. No, I don't think . . . he'd be difficult to find anyway, you know? I mean, the church was in chaos when the news reports finished with them. He's probably long gone from there. No one is going to have time to help out some junkie anymore."

"He said he was clean, Bobby," she reminded him. "He looked clean."

"Yeah, well, if he was so clean, why couldn't he take the time go see his _fucking mother_?" Bobby blurted, abruptly throwing down the hand that had been cradling his head and jerking himself up to a sitting position. "His fucking dying mother. She . . . _hours_, Eames. Hours, we sat there," he repeated, slapping his hand against the coffee table for emphasis. "He was going to come, she told me. Why wouldn't I just shut up about how he wasn't coming, he was just running a little late, if her Frankie said he was coming, then he was coming. It wasn't _his _fault that I'd always been jealous of him, and he was always the son who loved her, and if Frankie was here she wouldn't be stuck in that godforsaken hospital being poked with needles four times a day, and -"

"Oh, Bobby . . . She doesn't know. She doesn't realize . . ." Alex attempted.

"Oh, she realizes," he cut in curtly. "She's perfectly lucid ninety percent of the time, and the rest of it she just thinks the medical staff is out to get her. Me, I'm just the younger kid who never cared about her anyway."

"No . . ."

"Yes."

Desperate to comfort him, she rose up on her knees and slid her arms around his neck from behind, laying her forehead against his shoulder. "I'm sorry."

"What I started to say in the kitchen . . ." He paused, swallowing. "Before I y-yelled at you, I mean. I was going to say that I . . ."

"What, Bobby?"

"I wish she'd break again, Alex," he told her in an agonized whisper, the hate he felt for himself fairly dripping from the words. "If she'd have a psychotic break . . . we could handle her. If she weren't lucid, I'd have total medical authority over her . . . I could make sure she gets the treatments she keeps trying to refuse. We could . . . we could even sedate her if we had to. If she would just _get bad _again . ." He stopped there, growling viciously at himself. "I'm wishing the schizophrenia on her - after years of trying to keep her out of it . . . after years of trying to keep her with me, _I just want her gone_!"

"Oh, god." She couldn't stand any more. She tightened her arms around him, forcing him to lean back into her, and there on the couch she rocked him like a child three times her size, murmuring incoherent words and stroking his hair. "It's not your fault, Bobby. It's all just . . . difficult. _She's _difficult. You pour everything you have into her, and you have nothing left for yourself, and you end up like this, hating yourself . . . shh, Bobby, please . . ."

She felt tears on her neck. Her partner was crying, sobbing silently against her, his hands fisted in his lap as he fought it. Trying desperately to comfort him, she lowered her head and kissed his hair, inhaling the scent of his shampoo mixed with sweat and tears. "You wouldn't talk to me. All this guilt, Bobby, and you try to cope with it yourself . . . _why _wouldn't you trust me? I'm your partner! I'm your support. Even if I hated you I'd be your support, and I don't hate you. I don't, and I don't understand why you couldn't tell me . . ." On and on she went, rambling into his hair, not sure what she was saying and knowing that he wasn't hearing it, anyway.

Eventually, she became aware of the fact that he was no longer shaking against her, and that she was now the one crying. They were wrapped in each other's embrace, her head snuggled into the crook of his neck, his hand resting on the bare small of her back where her shirt had ridden up.

And his arms were tightening around her.


	5. Chapter 5

"Bobby?" she ventured quietly, not lifting her head. Being burrowed into him felt entirely too good to give up without adequate cause. Although if his arms got much tighter, her ribs might overrule that.

"Mmm?"

"You ok?"

He exhaled heavily, and she could smell the wine on his breath as it drifted past her cheek. She wondered idly how drunk he was feeling after those five glasses of red. She was definitely feeling a little numb after her own four drinks. In fact, the numbness might have something to do with her reluctance to pick up her head or stand up. It would be embarrassing to get to her feet and promptly fall flat on her face after an emotional scene like they'd just staged. Speaking of which . . .

"Does sighing dramatically signify a yes, or a no, Bobby?"

"I, uh . . ." He sighed again. "I'm fine. Sorry."

"For what?"

Without moving either of his arms from around her, he managed to shrug. "Everything. I've been . . . unkind lately."

"No you haven't!" she protested, finally pulling away, just to stare at him. "There's a lot of things you _have _been, but 'unkind' isn't one of them. Except maybe to the captain," she added facetiously. "Not that he didn't deserve it. But you certainly don't owe me an apology for unkindness."

"I . . . I don't?"

"No. But you can apologize for keeping me in the dark about all this. That one I'll accept."

He closed his arms back around her and nodded slightly, his nose brushing her ear as he inclined his head. "I apologize."

"Forgiven. And that tickles, stop it!" she added, elbowing him in the side.

"Huh? What tickles?"

"You're breathing on me!"

"Sorry."

Thirty seconds later, she elbowed him again. "I didn't tell you to stop breathing, idiot! Just breathing _on _me!"

Bobby let out the breath he'd been making a point of holding, then grinned at her. "You have to be specific about things like that, Eames."

She rolled her eyes. "I ought to know that by now. After all these years with you, Bobby . . ."

"Yeah," he said softly. "Years. How long, Eames?"

"Seven," she replied without hesitation.

"Sev- no, that's not right! It was 2001, which means -"

She chuckled. "I wondered if you were really asking, or if you already knew the answer. Ok, it's six. Almost seven. Feels like seven."

"Have I tired you out in only six years, Eames?" he teased, feeling courageous in the face of tonight's closeness, both emotional and physical.

"Tired me out?" She stared at him in exaggerated disbelief, then laughed. "Bobby, I haven't had a full night's sleep since I met you!"

"You haven't? Why not?"

"Hmm." She smirked. "Keeping up with you is a full-time job. Frankly, I can think of better things to do with some of the nights I've spent chasing you all over New York."

"You, uh . . . you can?" He tried to hide his wince. She had better things to do than spend time with him. Of course she did.

"Yeah. Like _not _chasing you all over New York. You ever consider sitting still for a night or two? Maybe with a friend?"

"A . . . friend?" He was struggling to figure out where she was going with this.

"Or a girlfriend." She snuck a glance up at him. "If you've got one."

He blinked, wondering where the slyness in her voice had come from. "I don't. Uh, well, unless you count you."

She abruptly stopped laughing and stared at him in confusion. "Me?"

He managed a weak smile. "Yeah. My brother . . . Frank . . . when we ran into him, he thought you were my girlfriend. Well, my wife, actually. Then my girlfriend, when I told him we weren't married,"

"Er . . . oh." She paused, wondering why he hadn't mentioned that to her when it happened, then just shook her head humorously. "Not the first time someone's assumed that."

"Well, no. But . . ." He swallowed. "You know, he's my brother. He grew up with me."

She raised an eyebrow. "And . . . you think maybe he knows more about you than a random criminal who assumes we're a couple?"

"S-Something along those lines. I just, uh . . . I wonder sometimes, you know?"

"Bobby." She raised a hand to pat his cheek jokingly. "Trust me. If we were sleeping together, at least one of us would have noticed. We're detectives like that."

"That's . . . not what I wonder."

"It's not? What, then? Did I miss something in this conversation?"

He shrugged and slumped back on the couch. "I wonder . . . sometimes, I mean . . . I wonder what it would be like."

"Us? Together?"

"Yeah."

Alex thought about that for a second. "It would be . . . nice, I think."

"Nice?"

"Yeah. Nice. We make a good team in just about any context, if you hadn't noticed. I don't see why sleeping together would be any different."

"Uh, Eames?"

"Hmm?"

"How much did you have to drink?"

"Four drinks, and you had five. Why?"

He shrugged awkwardly. "We're talking about sleeping together."

She mulled that over, then nodded a frank acknowledgement. "You're right, we are. You feel drunk?"

"A little. You?"

"A little bit more than a little. Hey, Bobby?"

"Yes?"

"If we're drunk . . ."

Bobby waited, eyebrows raised, for her to finish that sentence, but she didn't. Instead, she lifted her eyes to his face speculatively and tightened her arms where they had gone around his waist. "Eames?" he ventured, unable to keep himself from lowering his head to nuzzle her hair.

She raised her head at the same time, and their lips met.

* * *

A/N: I think this might be the end. I could turn it into a huge production where they have sex, and then one of them regrets it, and the other one is hurt, and blah blah, but, well, we've all read that plot fifty times before. So I'm inclined to leave this as it is, and let you use your imaginations for the rest. Well, probably. 


End file.
